What I Did for Zelda

Joystiq has announced that MTV is looking for recollections of vivid gaming moments. I submitted mine, although my most vivid memory isn’t me actually playing a game. Read on to feel my everlasting shame.

This wasn’t related to playing a game, but it’s the most outrageous thing I’ve ever done to obtain one.

It was winter and I was still in high school. It was a Friday and heavy snow had cancelled classes that day. I had just gotten enough money to pick up a used Nintendo 64 and a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I still couldn’t drive so I begged my mother to take me out to get my game. The roads were really bad, but she agreed to take me. We went to a pawn shop and got the Nintendo 64 just fine. On the way to the mall, however, we had an accident. Coming around a corner, we hit some black ice and my mother’s car spun out of control. The car hit the curb, jamming the wheel into the wheel well. Not long after that, another car careened into my mother’s.

We were then stuck out in the snow, a half mile away from the mall. We called a tow truck and waited. After some time, I asked my mother if I could just go ahead and walk up to the mall and get the game. She said yes. I walked away, leaving my mother alone in the cold so that I could get my game.

I got it. And it was a thing of beauty. To this day I feel kind of bad about it. I still think it was worth it though. After all, it would have been a wasted trip otherwise, right?